Key Events
The United States government stopped making payments to other nations they were in $32 million debt to.
Americans were spending a lot of money on the construction of the Panama Canal.
Roosevelt felt that the United States had a “moral mandate” to enforce proper behavior among the nations of Latin America.
Cuba became the foundation for a new Latin American Policy.
Latin Americans viewed the new policy as a way for America to have even more control over their countries.
T. Roosevelt felt as tho America had a “moral mandate” that would enforce proper behavior among the nations of Latin America, stating:
It is not true that the United States feels any land hunger or entertains any projects as regards the other nations of the Western Hemisphere save such as are for their welfare. All that this country desires is to see the neighboring countries stable, orderly, and prosperous. Any country whose people conduct themselves well can count upon our hearty friendship. If a nation shows that it knows how to act with reasonable efficiency and decency in social and political matters, if it keeps order and pays its obligations, it need fear no interference from the United States. Chronic wrongdoing, or an impotence which results in a general loosening of the ties of civilized society, may in America, as elsewhere, ultimately require intervention by some civilized nation, and in the Western Hemisphere the adherence of the United States to the Monroe Doctrine may force the United States, however reluctantly, in flagrant cases of such wrongdoing or impotence, to the exercise of an international police power.
The Monroe Doctrine had originally been intended to keep European nations out of Latin America, but the Roosevelt corollary was used as a justification for U.S. intervention in Latin America.